Alex felt a headache creeping in. “Jack said the group was called Eviar.”
Westfall didn’t immediately respond, and that in itself was confirmation. “Eviar is a group of inmates. They were ingenious, but they didn’t quite know how to control their minds.”
“Inmates?” Alex asked.
“From Paradise, yes.”
“Then how come Ellington didn’t know about the name?”
Westfall raised an eyebrow. “They didn’t adopt that name until after they were released from Paradise, a release that I approved but Van Hanlin ordered. He thought they could be of use. I thought they could be watched, tamed, useful during the war. We were arrogant. And wrong.”
“Van Hanlin,” Chase said. “And the ink showed up in law notebooks. You think Van Hanlin is responsible for all this?”
“No. He was working with us.”
“You knew what was going on?”
“Bits and pieces.”
Alex remembered his entrance in Moribund. “You knew the banshee was near the haunted house.”
Westfall nodded.
“And you and Duvall were talking about Eviar that day during her ABC group. Did you know she was going to send me to Parrish?”
“We needed to track the group. And we needed to see the extent of what the recruits would do and how you would handle it. We wouldn’t allow anyone to get hurt.”
“Van Hanlin is missing.”
“His mistakes continue to haunt him.”
Chase balled his hands. “We’ve been passed out for a month!”
“Newburies are tested throughout their entire stay at Brigitta. You’d better get used to it,” Westfall replied.
Alex placed a hand over one of Chase’s fists. She didn’t particularly like Westfall, but if he was giving out answers, she’d take all she could get. “Was Eviar named after one of its members?”
“Yes.”
Alex closed her eyes. So Eviar had found Paradise, after all.
“I was convinced they would help us to win the war, but I should have realized they had a different agenda. Eventually Eviar was dismantled with the help of a friend of mine, a prophet I’m sure you’d heard of by now. Sephi Anovark sacrificed her life to end the antics of that godforsaken brotherhood.”
“Sephi found them?”
Westfall nodded. “Sephi was responsible for the detainment of many spirits. You understand now why people wanted her dead. Why they might want you dead, if they think you can see their crimes before they happen?”
“So Eviar was responsible for what happened to us?”
“Seeing as how the founder of Eviar—not to mention the rest of the inmates released—are dead, we can’t say for sure. It might still be a copycat situation.”
Alex wanted to sink right through the mattress of the hospital bed. Eviar had died. And Sephi had died. That was the ending to the letters.
“So we may never know who would want to rebuild an army?” Chase asked.
“My concern,” said Westfall “is not so much who, but why.”
***
On the morning Chase and Alex were to be released from the Medical Center, Kaleb and Gabe arrived to escort them home. Alex couldn’t understand why Kaleb insisted it was necessary until they left the building to find crowds gathered, bordering the sides of the street. Most spirits watched her in fascination, others waved, and some held photos of Sephi. Alex spotted Ardor Westfall patrolling through the spectators, and she couldn’t decide if this made her feel safe or not.
She was relieved to reach the seclusion of the Brigitta campus and immediately excused herself to visit the learning center. “I have someone I need to talk to.”
Chase glanced in the direction of the school and made a face. “Do I need to remind you that Duvall led you to the Eskers that night? She put you in that situation.”
“I know. That’s the whole point.”
Alex entered the abandoned school and only heard her hollow footsteps after she wondered why she made no noise. Most of the doors to the classrooms were closed, but something told Alex that the one she was headed for would be wide open, the steam from a mind-bending concoction wafting into the hallway. Sure enough, the closer she inched to the ABC room, the thicker the smell of rotten eggs and gasoline permeated the air.
She hesitated in the doorway, watching Duvall lift her arms over a line of flasks. She was like a bat with wings of crocheted yarn. “Awake finally?” Duvall asked.
“You knew that though, right?”
“Not of my own accord.”
Alex hoisted herself up onto the nearest desk. “Did you know who we would be fighting that night?”
Duvall’s voice was low. “There are ways of knowing the pictures that fate has already painted on her canvas. I wasn’t sure of anything but the scene itself.”
“How?”
Duvall click-clacked around the lab table. “I think you’ll discover the answer to that question in due time.”
“If you knew what was going to happen, why would you let us go?”
“Because that was the plan.”
Alex twirled her hair nervously. “I want to ask you about a student you had a little over a hundred years ago.”
Duvall chuckled. “What makes you think I’d remember a child from so long ago?”
“Just a hunch. Sephi Anovark?”
Duvall’s bony fingers clenched the edge of the table. “No doubt you saw that blasted column.”
“I already knew about her. You knew I looked like her. Why didn’t you tell me earlier? It would have explained a lot.”
“That isn’t what made me curious about you,” Duvall replied. “But the staff thought it was best if you remained unaware about your appearance at least until you became adjusted to this world.”
“Why?”
“It isn’t easy being a prophet or to be associated with one. Much like it isn’t easy to be a witch. You see, prophets and witches are categorized together as the gifted. Sephi was an instant target. Witches and prophets are not safe in the spiritual world, which is why I never leave this campus.” Duvall studied Alex with a look of determination. “Your mother learned that the hard way.”
“My mother? So was she a witch? Or a prophet?”
“Neither.”
Alex threw her hands in the air, exasperated.
“But she resembled Sephi Anovark enough for the spiritual world to become hysterical. People thought she lied about her abilities. Right away, the government assumed she was gifted and employed her to help them. She went digging for answers about her ancestry and it led her back to your hometown. She never came back. Ardor Westfall thought it best that you remain ignorant so your fate would not mirror hers.”
“Sephi’s family was killed, right?”
Duvall responded quietly. “Yes.”
“So let me get this straight. My mother had no prophetic talent and no possible relationship to this girl, but she was killed simply because she looked like her? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Magic scares people. Enough people were terrified of Sephi Anovark to want to keep any piece of her out of this world forever.”
“What’s to fear?”
“Prophets can see things about people, things that they might want to keep concealed. Many people believed that events occurred because she predicted them. Witches know better. Some aspects of fate are written in lead, some in ink.” She paused for several moments, allowing Alex to mull over what she’d said. “People are afraid of those who are different from themselves. I’ve been alive a long time, and that is something that never seems to change.”
But one person had never been afraid of Sephi.
“Professor, do you remember Sephi’s best friend here at Brigitta?”
Duvall puckered her lips in a sour expression.
“You didn’t like him,” Alex added.
“Correct.”
“Who was it?”
Duvall’s eyes flashed angrily like the reflection of
an unforgiving sun. “The very person who murdered her.”
Alex recoiled, dread seeping through her.
“He went after her. No one wants to believe it, but evidence of Eviar has been resurfacing all year.”
“Eviar,” Alex squeaked.
“That was the name of his alliance. He certainly was not humble, was he, that Syrus Raive.” Duvall snickered. “Using his own name to label his group only implicated him in twice the number of crimes.”
“His name?”
“Spell it backwards.”
RAIVE. EVIAR.
If Alex had a body, she would have vomited all over the floor. His brotherhood. His name backwards, a nickname Sephi herself had inspired. Backwards thinking.
“Syrus Raive,” Duvall said his name like a curse. “He could infest a mind like a locust. I’m sure he’d heard that Sephi had predicted his death.”
“Was that why he left?”
Duvall reached into a desk drawer and extracted a green plant. She held it next to Alex’s face. “Unfortunately, sometimes we cannot control who we are connected to.”
“I don’t understand.”
She placed the plant back in the drawer before pointing a bony finger at Alex’s head. “She could hear him. Even if he wasn’t speaking. She had no control over it. She had to listen to the thoughts that made him a monster, and he could hear her prophecies. After class one day, she came to me wanting some sort of solution, but unfortunately I had none. She distanced herself, but she couldn’t get Raive out of her head even then. What a cancer. We need to keep our minds closed lest we desire insanity.”
Alex was feeling more and more lightheaded, and she reached out to stabilize herself against the counter. There was no explanation why she was so similar to this girl.
“Sit down,” Duvall ordered. “You just came back to the land of the somewhat living.” She patted Alex’s arm and continued to mix ingredients. “Raive heard Josephine’s thoughts when she went into hiding, and that’s how he found her. She tried to run from it, and she tried to fight it, but the world wouldn’t let her. Some things are just bigger than us. It’s foolish to think that we can manipulate that.” She bit her lip. “I couldn’t predict Syrus Raive’s future as she could, but I could taste his betrayal.”
Alex felt the desire to tell the truth. “I found letters that he wrote to Sephi. He never said his real name. He signed it Eviar. I had no idea it was him.”
Duvall rested her elbow on the edge of the table and leaned towards Alex.
“He seems pretty young. It’s mainly about school. But I can’t read half of them because they’re written in some strange ink.”
“The ink you questioned me about?” Duvall asked. She analyzed Alex like it was the first time she’d ever laid eyes on her. “When did the ink disappear?”
“After I tried to let Chase read them.”
“Hmm, yes, magic is unforgiving sometimes.”
“I can still see half of them.”
“Peculiar,” Duvall whispered. “May I have the opportunity to look at the letters?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said warily. “The last time I tried to show them to someone else, they disappeared on me.”
“I might be able to find a loophole. Where did you find these letters?”
“In Moribund.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” There was dry humor in her tone. “Were they in a box?”
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“If you were able to see the contents of that box, you must have some connection to Sephi, by relation or not.”
“You said it was impossible.”
“I’m a firm believer in the impossible.”
“Didn’t you say before it could be a glitch? If the person didn’t know what they were doing.”
“Oh, they knew what they were doing.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I created that box.”
“You?”
“Of course. I designed it. And that box wouldn’t have shown itself to you unless it felt some sort of allegiance. Whoever put it there wanted to know if you could see it.”
Alex shifted on the desk.
Duvall mumbled under her breath, raking her fingers through her erratic hair and causing it to stand on end.
“Professor?”
She waved her hand towards to door. “I think that’s enough. Go enjoy being awake for a change.”
The fumes in the ABC room, mixed with her confusion, made Alex woozy. She gladly escaped, picking up her pace the closer she came to the exit. Outside, the sun fell over the town like a spotlight. She’d never seen the city so bright.
Chase’s feet dangled from the edge of the picnic table. He lay sprawled in the sunshine with his eyes shut tightly. The light radiated from him so brightly he could have been an angel. He looked so young. She’d never understand how it was possible to love someone so much that she could ignore how terrified it made her.
Chase turned his head and opened his eyes, finding Alex with a smile. When she reached him, he braided his fingers in hers, and pleasant zings of electricity shook her body.
“How was your chat with Professor Crazy?”
Alex blinked against the glare of the sun. “You weren’t listening?”
“Nah.”
Her mind ached thinking of Duvall’s warnings about keeping one’s thoughts to one’s self. “I have a lot to tell you.”
Chase jumped off the picnic table. He slid his arm around her, leading her away from the shade of the towers and into the rays of the sun. “I have a feeling it won’t be a light conversation.”
“It may take a while.”
Chase let out a small laugh and pulled her in close. “Let’s save it for later. We have all the time in world.”
Alex nodded and curled her hand around the edges of a small note, the one she’d found in her pocket at the medical center. A scrawling of an hourglass. Had someone placed it there? Had her mind created it somehow? She wanted desperately to know, but she held her tongue and stuffed the note deeper into her pocket, saving it for another time. Chase was right. They did have time. A luxury she might never get used to.
She stepped away from him and stretched out her arms, opening her palms toward the heavens. And then, she did something she’d never done in life. She twirled. She threw back her head, absorbing the energy of the sunlight, and she spun and spun until her mind became the clouds and her vision became the whirling wind.
Alex had once believed that when she died everything that made her weak— her love, her sadness, her pain—would all spill out of her body and into the world. And maybe once she really truly died, whenever that might be, if ever that might be, her emotions would leave her, since there would be nothing to contain them. They would dissolve into the air until they were nothing, or perhaps even find the closest object to cling to. But not love. Love, she believed, would ride the wind until it found the sky, shining its beauty on the world below.
Perhaps that is the only thing truly immortal.
A. Lynden Rolland
A. Lynden Rolland is a former high school English teacher and writing tutor. She resides just outside of Annapolis, Maryland. Of Breakable Things is her first novel.
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